Tents and canopies have been used for decades to provide temporary and portable shelters for equipment and personnel. Generally, a tent or a canopy is a flexible covering suspended over an area to be protected and secured directly or indirectly to an earthen support surface usually by tethers. The tethers are each connected at one end to and along various locations at margin edges of the flexible covering and at an opposite end to stakes embedded into the earthen surface. The margin edges of the flexible covering extend peripherally around the flexible covering and often include a sewn seam or a welting. Metal eyelets are usually secured either directly into the seam or proximate to the welting. These eyelets act to reinforce the flexible covering at the locations of attachment thereby minimizing chances of tearing the flexible covering when the tether is pulled taunt to secure it over the protected area.
Sometimes an earthen support surface is not available when erecting a tent or canopy. In these cases, the tethers must be secured to some other type of support such as a post embedded in concrete or a fastener connected to a wall. Since such supports are often not movable, occasionally the tent or canopy must be raised and then re-positioned in order to align the metal eyelets at more optimum positions for tethering to the supports. If these supports are not appropriately position, the tent or canopy might appear distorted which distracts from any aesthetic appeal that modern tents and canopies provide.
Flexible cord is used in many types of applications in order to secure an article to a support. One of these many applications occurs in the sport of sailing. For example, sails are slidably retained on booms by loops of cord threaded through the eyelets in the seam of the sail and around the boom. Occasionally, severe windy conditions can cause the main body of the sail to tear away from its seam. Presently, the only option available to the sailor is to collapse the sail and stow it around the boom until repairs can be made.
Sails, tents and canopies are just a few samples of articles that are include flexible cords. Flexible cords can be either a cord itself or a flexible sheet of material having a welting. The welting could be standard whereby a margin edge of the flexible sheet of material is folded around a cord then sewn to itself. Sometimes the welting could be the margin edge of the flexible sheet of material rolled around itself numerous times then stitched along the centerline of the roll. In other instances, the welting could be numerous small folds of the margin edge about itself and sewn along its centerline. In all circumstances, these weltings are flexible and act similarly as a cord connected to the margin edge of the flexible sheet material.
There is a need in the industry for an anchor device to engage a cord along a cord segment. Specifically, there is a need for an anchor device to interconnect a flexible cord with a support structure. It would be advantageous if such anchor device could be connected to the welting or a cord and slide therealong so that the point of interconnection between the flexible cord structure and the support can be changed, if desired, without removing it from the cord. This feature would resolve the problem associated with erecting tents and canopies on certain surfaces where the tent or canopy must be oriented strategically relative to fixed supports. There is another need for an anchor device that could be used to interconnect a torn portion of a sail with a support so that the torn sail could continue to be employed during sailing without worry of further destruction. It would be advantageous of this anchor device would be simple and inexpensive to manufacture as well as easy to use. The present invention satisfies these needs and provides these advantages.